G'day listeners. In this podcast we talk about not positive thinking but accurate thinking with
a positive bent. We discuss a fantastic podcast that we listen to and how we can use thinking
to change our experience. Enjoy. Why did it count backwards?
We're now recording. What? Hello captain.
What do I say? Come fly with me. Let's fly, let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
And we're alive and feeling positive. Yes positive. Don't know like I am alive.
But we're not. We're recording. Yes. We are recording.
Hey Michelle. Hey guys.
I want to talk about positive thinking. Yes.
I grew up with all of those books around me, The Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich,
all of the positive thinking books from the 70s and 80s. And I read a lot of them when I was quite
young. But then I noticed there was a bit of a pushback to positive thinking over the next
couple of decades and it's starting to come back. But I had a fantastic experience the other day
where I was watching another podcast and I saw something I absolutely love and I want to share.
Yeah. So your experience is different to mine. My parents were very much positive thinkers and
pushed positivity. And so yeah, I've not noticed the decline, I suppose, in society.
There was a resistance. Yeah, I haven't noticed that.
You didn't notice it? No. I guess.
People have said to me though, almost like it's a bad thing. Oh, you're so positive,
Michelle, with a bit of a slur. But yeah. I've heard so many people push back and say
things like, oh, you're not into that positive thinking mumbo jumbo shit. I've had active push
back from people. Wow. Okay.
Which I find really interesting. But okay, so the experience I had, right? So I love learning,
as you know, and you do too. And we're always listening to experts and other people. And
one of the podcasts I listen to is the Diary of a CEO. Fantastic podcast. Shout out.
Stephen Bartlett. Stephen Bartlett. And he was interviewing
Dr. Damien Amen. I've got to say it like that. Amen. Amen. Or A-M-E-N. I don't know how he
pronounces it, but I like saying amen. But Dr. Damien, Daniel, I should say. Dr. Daniel Amen
was talking about how he was working with an author, Noelle Nelson. She was writing a book
called, what was it? The Power of Appreciation. And she asked Dr. Daniel to scan her brain while
she was feeling positive about her brain. And the way he describes it on the podcast, he said, oh,
and when we looked at the scans, her brain was beautiful. And only a brain surgeon could describe
a brain as beautiful. But I agree. I think brains are beautiful things. Anyway, he then challenged
her and he said, well, look, I need you to come back tomorrow and hate your brain or hate yourself.
Hate yourself. Yeah. And we'll scan you again. She went, oh, no, no, no, I can't do that. I don't
do that. And he said, well, no, you've got to suffer for science. So she went back the next day,
apparently, and she was hating on her brain and hating on herself. And he scanned her brain
and then compared the positive thinking scan and then the negative thinking scan, the hating
yourself scan. And what he noticed was that in the second scan, her left temporal lobe, her left
frontal lobe and her cerebellum had all dropped. Yeah. So there was a physical change in the
structure or the alignment of parts of her brain. And when I heard that, it really, really resonated
with me because he then went on to say firstly that the deactivated brain, he called it, explains
athletic slumps. And he said that negativity turns off the cerebellum and they become just a little
less coordinated. And it immediately reminded me of what I was talking to you on the last podcast
about an experience where we were initially and I was playing like shit. And I couldn't get out of
my head and I was feeling negative and I slumped and my performance slumped. And the more I thought
about it, the worse I played. My coordination wasn't there. And I don't know, do you ever watch
The Karate Kid? Yeah. Do you remember when he put his hands together and he's like then put them
above his head, put them above his head and then he pushed him forward and then up? Do you remember?
Anyway, it was an action he did to get himself mentally into the space, right? Okay. And I
started to do that in the water. I was doing anything I could to get my coordination and get
out of my head and it just didn't work. But now after listening to that podcast, I think I may
have a reason. Is that why when you're in a funk, like in your head, in a bad mood, you stub your toe,
you trip? Maybe your coordination is shit. You lose your coordination. Which then reaffirms
and puts you further in the bad mood, which then you hit your arm or you, you know, I don't know.
Yeah, possibly. Let's start doing a study and let's get our listeners to maybe comment. Have you
ever been in a bit of a mental slump? You're feeling negative and then you start to hurt yourself more.
Yeah. Knock into things. You knock into things. Well, we both broke our toe on the same piece of
furniture last year. It's still there. It's still there. Aren't we smart? We just avoid it. We walk
around it now. We're in control of our limbs. But you know, looking back, were we feeling negative
on those days? I don't know. Well, look, I've got a theory and it could be completely wrong. So if
anyone with any scientific knowledge at all hears me and thinks you're an idiot, just like just
ignores. Why that happens to me all the time. But so my mum is a kinesiologist and so energy of the
body and she's done a lot of reading on the effects of water and hydration on the body. And water,
I've said before, is my medicine. Your go-to medicine. Yeah. So if ever I'm feeling a little low,
my eyes, I can't read properly. I can't think water is, I've either got to see it, drink it or be in
it. We have some water here right now. Do you need some? No, I'm good. But there are maybe also with
the, I'm thinking about that study that you were just mentioning about the brain changing as well.
Because we've got so much water in us, there was that study and I don't know the Japanese. Yeah,
water. And he wrote words on the glasses of water or on the petri dishes. Before he froze the water.
Yeah. And it was, and the structures of the water actually changed. Now, if we're thinking
negativity and thinking negative thoughts and hating on ourselves, the amount of hydration,
water that we have in our body, the structure's changing, then that also potentially changes
our structure as well. Which then leads to poor coordination like we're talking about.
Yeah. So sharp jagged edges rather than smooth. It's all making sense now, Michelle. I wish I'd
known this stuff when I was playing sports. I had some successes, but I had some failures as well.
And those failures were really, really frustrating because I couldn't understand why I couldn't
perform to the peak that I knew that I had previously performed at or I couldn't get
myself. Yeah. It was really strange that I wasn't as consistent as what I'd like to have been. And
I look back on when I didn't perform as well and it was all about negativity.
Yeah. So if you're at work or at home and you're in the negative, what would you suggest?
Okay. So this leads me to another quote that Dr. Daniel Amen said. Amen. Amen. I'm going to
go Amen because it just resonates, but I haven't heard him say his own name. So I'm just going to
give him my pronunciation of his name. Dr. Daniel Amen. Amen. Yeah. All right. That was stupid.
Okay. So he said he doesn't believe in positive thinking and that immediately sparked my interest.
I'm thinking what? You've just given scientific evidence that positive thinking...
Thinking....helps you. And he said, I believe in accurate thinking with a positive bent.
And this is brilliant because this is something that we do teach. So for example, in one of the
courses, we teach memory skills and a lot of people say, oh, I've got a really bad memory for
names. And I say, well, the first thing you've got to do if you want to be good at remembering names,
because I had a morbid fear of using people's names all throughout my life and went off and
studied. And one of the first things you need to do to get better at remembering people's names is
to stop saying that you're bad at remembering people's names. Because when you say to somebody,
I'm really bad at remembering names, you're programming your subconscious. Next time you
go out and meet somebody, you say, oh, hi, Michelle. Nice to meet you. Your brain goes,
what's Michelle? Michelle's a name. What do we know about names? We're no good at names. Oh,
forget about Michelle. And you forgot the name within three seconds. Yes. So your subconscious
mind will purge their name from your brain because we only remember sounds for three seconds.
Echoic memory is three seconds. And so if you've told your brain that you can't remember something,
it will make sure that you can't remember something. Yeah. It abides the instruction
you give it. So I say to people, you can't say that, you can't say that anymore. And then somebody
says, well, but you can't just say I'm brilliant at names because I know I'm not. And I said,
that's exactly correct. Yeah. You can't just suddenly say, use positive thinking. Oh,
I'm very good at names. I'm very good at names. I'm so fast. I'm an Olympian. Yes. I'm fast in the
pool. You can't say it because you won't believe it. So what Dr. Daniel Amen was saying is that
you should have accurate thinking with a positive bent. And so what, and I love that statement. I'm
going to use that forever now. It's basically, so I say to people, don't say that you're bad at
remembering names. Say, I used to be bad, factually correct. I used to be bad, but now I'm getting
better because I'm practicing and I will get better and better every day. So that's positive.
I am getting better. I am getting better. Rather than I will get better. Oh, what did I say? I will.
I am. Yeah. No, good, good, good. I am. Cause we're going to make it into the present tense.
So I am getting better and I'm getting better every day because I'm practicing and using
techniques. Yeah. And so that's accurate thinking with a positive bent. So this whole positive
thinking and the reason, is that a plane going over? It's a helicopter. A helicopter.
Right. Only you would recognize it with headphones on in our studio up here in Darwin. So what was
I saying? So accurate thinking. Yeah. Accurate thinking with a positive bent is I think the best
statement and why I heard all of that pushback about positive thinking is because people didn't
believe what they were trying to convince themselves. Yeah. Similar to affirmations,
I suppose. Um, with the positive thinking, yeah, that positive affirmations went, had a, had a bad
rap for being woo woo. Well, that was the positive thinking stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I can understand
now what you meant by that because there were positive affirmations that, that people gurus
were coming out and saying, and they were unrealistic for most people. Like I want to be tall and
they're, you know, they're capped at five foot two and they're 42 years old. They're not going to be
taller. Yeah. Unless they get a Russia and get their legs broken. Yes. That would be painful.
But, uh, and you know, I will meet, uh, I, my relationship with my dreams is, you know,
is coming to me, but they're a home body who can't leave, you know, whatever. Yeah. So there,
there's unrealistic. So it's, it's not accurate. Yeah. So that, yeah, that, that's where I, yeah,
I'm sure that all of the resistance that I heard came from the power of positive thinking, but
people didn't go deep enough into it to understand what it was all about. So it's what they could
believe. Yeah. It's not positive thinking. It's accurate thinking with a positive bent, with a
future vision of where you want to get to based on the current reality, not all of a sudden,
Hey, I'm brilliant at this. When yesterday you weren't, and you haven't even picked up a book
on it or done any research. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to think that negative thinking changes the
structure of your brain. Yeah. There's another aircraft going overhead. That's a plane. What's
that one? Is it? Oh, it's probably is seven, three, seven. Okay. Oh, that's what you used to
captain Michelle. So if our negative thoughts change the structure of our brain, how do we,
how do we get out of it? If we've got a pattern of negative thinking or catching yourself,
acknowledging that it's happening and accepting, yeah. And accept it. That's right. And then
actively look at changing the script, but in a believable way. So present tense that you are the
positive of that fact. Yeah. So you've got to know and listen to your programming. You're going to
know the way you think. And I don't think a lot of it. I'm thinking about thinking. I don't think a
lot of people actually take time to think about how they think. They don't listen to their thoughts.
Self-awareness. Yeah. Well, it's because yeah, most people think that they are their thoughts
instead of the observers of their thoughts, which is something that's very important to me that
I spend a lot of time observing my thinking and distancing myself from my thinking because
thoughts just come into your mind all the time, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. So who was it? Eckhart
Tolle said that thoughts are like clouds that just pass by, you know, and you can either bring them
in or let them float by. And I've tried to sit there on the couch and just stop thinking.
It's meditation. It's impossible. It is impossible. And that's the misconception about meditation,
that meditation is stopping thinking. It's not. It's about observing your thinking and then just
coming back to a central point, whether it be a breath or something else. Yeah. And the art and
the skill of meditation is very powerful because you get to observe the thoughts that are coming
in and out of your mind. And then if you are smart enough to do this, you then get to decide
whether that thought is going to help you or hinder you. And if it's going to help you take
it on board, if it's going to hinder you, let it go. It doesn't have to be true, but regrettably,
not most, a lot of people look at those thoughts and act on them as though they're true, but that
thought wasn't even in their head 20 seconds ago. It's just come in, it's floated in from somewhere
and now all of a sudden they're acting as though that thought was true. Well, there's another case
for the five people that you surround yourself with have the most amount of influence on your
thoughts and your actions. So surround yourself with positive people? Or people who are doing
what you want to do, what you believe in. So they're actually doing or doing the work.
Yeah. But I really like this statement that Dr. Daniel made that he doesn't believe in positive
thinking. He believes in accurate thinking with a positive bent. Yeah, I'm going to really
start pushing that throughout all my courses and keynotes that that might then reduce the
resistance that I've seen built up over the last couple of decades around positive thinking.
It's not positive thinking, it's accurate thinking with a positive bent. I like that one,
that was good. Awesome. Nice and short. Yes. Oh, 15 minutes. Beuse, Bollinger, where are you?
Lindt, come on. We've still got the car wash kid. Okay. See you Michelle. Bye. Well, that was fun.
That was fun. You're such a clown. Lady captain. And who's going to listen to this? Maybe our mums.
Thanks, mum.